0 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
“Robert Pinsky,” in Talking with Poets, edited by Harry Thomas (New York:
Hansdel, 2002), pp. 12–40.
Interview conducted by several students enrolled in a course, “The Art of Poetry,”
taught by the editor, covering issues related to craft and theme. The interviewers
demonstrate broad knowledge of Pinsky’s oeuvre.
Tom Sleigh, “In the Intervals: Robert Pinsky and Tom Sleigh in Conversation,”
(1 October 1997) http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15896
[accessed 16 December 2009].
Discusses the influence of jazz on Pinsky’s poetry.
Sleigh, “Robert Pinsky,” Bomb, 68 (Summer 1999) http://www.bombsite.com/
issues/68/articles/2249 [accessed 16 December 2009].
Sketches out changes Pinsky sees in the field of poetry since writing The Situation
of Poetry (1977) and discusses the social and political role of poetry.
Adam J. Sorkin, “An Interview with Robert Pinsky,” Contemporary Literature, 25
(Spring 1984): 1–14.
An interview conducted relatively early in Pinsky’s career that places his work
within the context of contemporary American poetry and pinpoints themes that
continue to appear in his later poems.
J. M. Spalding, “Interview with Robert Pinsky,” Cortland Review (March 1998)
http://www.cortlandreview.com/pinsky.htm [accessed 16 December 2009].
Traces Pinsky’s reasons for becoming a poet, his involvement in the Favorite
Poem Project, and his translation of Dante’s Inferno.
Criticism
Robert Archambeau, “Identity Politics and the Modern Self: Robert Pinsky’s An
Explanation of America,” Mantis, 4 (2004): 108–123.
Interprets Pinsky’s poetry as ideologically appealing to a new “Bobo” (bourgeois/
bohemian) dominant class in American society.
Charles S. Berger, “Robert Pinsky,” in Contemporary Jewish-American Dramatists
and Poets: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, edited by Joel Shatzky and Michael Taub
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999), pp. 443–447.
A short discussion of the role of Judaism in Pinsky’s writing.
Robert Boyer, “Robert Pinsky [1997], [2000], [2001],” in A Book of Common Praise
(Keene, N.Y.: Ausable, 2002), pp. 86–94.
Originally written as introductions to three public readings. This discussion of
Pinsky’s work is highly positive.
Barry Goldensohn, “Myriad Minded: The Poetry of Robert Pinsky,” American
Poetry Review ( January/February 2009): 33–35.
Essential overview that traces a pattern of “theme and variation” throughout
Pinsky’s poetry collections. Goldensohn challenges the view of his early poems as
merely straightforward and didactic.